State Of The Mobile Nation

Last week marked the annual State of the Nation Address where President Zuma outlined government’s achievements over the previous year to a joint sitting of Parliament. This landmark yearly event takes stock of where we are as a nation and presents plans to move South Africa forward.

It might be pertinent to also take a look at where South Africa is when it comes to the state of mobile marketing in our country. Most of us know that we’re doing pretty well when we’re talking about overall mobile penetration in South Africa (now over 130%) and, for example, the use of mobile phones to browse the web (40% of users).

But what about the State of the Mobile Nation? Current and potential InTarget clients would surely be interested to know just how big mobile marketing is in South Africa. Well, a lot of mobile marketing happens via apps downloaded on smartphones and one World Wide Worx study last year found that South Africa leads the continent in app downloads, with 34% of phone users making downloads from app stores. This compares to 31% in Ghana, 28% in Nigeria, 19% in Kenya and 18% in Uganda.

The star performer on the mobile marketing front remains the text ads tagged onto Please Call Me messages. With each of Vodacom’s 31 million customers allowed to send 10 free Please Call Me messages per day, it’s no wonder the company sends out 3.6 billion of these little beauties a year. In conclusion, why don’t you speak to InTarget about these 3.6 billion mobile marketing opportunities?